


white demon love song

by 152glasslippers



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: (if you squint), (somewhat) forced cooperation, Action, Angst, Angst and Feels, Forgiveness, M/M, Season 2 AU, Sharing a Bed, Spy Stuff, soft boys!!!!!!!
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-04
Updated: 2018-12-04
Packaged: 2019-09-07 07:34:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 4,344
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16849828
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/152glasslippers/pseuds/152glasslippers
Summary: And then, like he’d conjured him just by thinking of him, the man in the sweater murmured “Ward” in thick, Scottish tones.Leopold Fitz was sitting next to him in a trashy tourist bar outside Tijuana.Season 2 AU. After leaving Shield with Fury’s toolbox, Fitz tracks down Ward for help before he contacts Coulson.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Madalayna](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Madalayna/gifts).



> For Madalayna, for the AoS rarepair exchange, who prompted “reunited after a long separation”
> 
> Hope you like it!!!! <3

The beer wasn’t great, but it wasn’t the worst he’d ever had. Probably because the bar catered to tourists: loud and crowded, authentically inauthentic. The menu was too simple and the decorations too garish, plastered over every surface not covered by flat-screen TVs. He hadn’t heard more than a dozen words spoken in Spanish since he’d walked in the place.

Contrary to popular belief, when you were trying to disappear, the dive bar, the hole-in-the-wall only the locals knew about, was never the smartest option. It’s easier to blend in amidst chaos than in an empty room. Enough faces and no one can ever say for sure whether they ever saw you. Even better if it’s a place where the other customers look like you, sound like you.

Someone somewhere along the way must have told Fitz the same thing. Or he figured it out for himself; Grant wouldn’t put it past him.

It’s why he didn’t notice him at first, didn’t pay any attention to the man sliding onto the stool next to him, ordering a pint of whatever was on tap in a bland American accent.

Until his sleeve, pushed up to his elbows, caught his eye. Gray knit, like the kind Fitz wore. Ridiculous that just a flash of fabric could bring him to mind.

And then, like he’d conjured him just by thinking of him, the man in the sweater murmured “Ward” in thick, Scottish tones.

It wasn’t _like_ the sweater Fitz used to wear, it _was_ Fitz’s sweater.

Leopold Fitz was sitting next to him in a trashy tourist bar outside Tijuana.

He wiped the shock off his face before Fitz could see it, slipping back into cool cynicism. His safe zone.

“It’s Mexico. Why are you still wearing a cardigan?”

“Sleeves are rolled up, aren’t they?”

The bartender came back with Fitz’s beer and Fitz thanked him, his voice going American again. Grant didn’t think he’d be able to switch in and out of it so quickly, not since…

He took another drink of his beer.

“Things must be desperate if you’re sitting next to me. How’d you even find me, anyway?”

“Agent 33’s mother is…chatty.”

Grant closed his eyes, took a deep, steadying breath. When he opened them, Fitz’s eyes were trained on the soccer—football, he could hear Fitz correcting him—match on the left-most TV above the bar. His knuckles were white against his beer glass, the line of his back too straight, the muscles in his thighs too tense. Grant checked the exits in the reflections of the TVs, lit by the afternoon sun. Nothing suspicious. Not yet.

“And you found me because…?”

“I’m being followed.”

Grant kept his eyes locked on the exits.

“How long until they catch up to you?”

“Three minutes. Tops.”

“How many?”

“Two.” He felt Fitz turn to look at him. “You can’t kill them. They’re Shield agents.”

That got his attention.

He tore his gaze from the exits to look at Fitz. He opened his mouth to ask and out of the corner of his eye caught the silhouettes of two men in suits through the wall of windows opposite the bar. He snapped his mouth shut. There wasn’t time.

“Grab your bags. Let’s go.”

He slid off his bar stool, backing up into the crowd, making room for Fitz to cross in front of him. The customer entrances were no good. He pushed Fitz toward the swinging door to the kitchen with a hand on his back.

If he were a man who relied on hope, he would have hoped for a fire exit off the kitchen. But he didn’t need hope. He knew it’d be there.

He hunched himself over as they made their way through the galley, mumbling apologies and claiming a need for fresh air, clinging to Fitz’s backpack and moving him at a fast-enough pace no one would get a good look at their faces.

When he heard the door click shut behind them, he reached for Fitz’s second bag and gave him a final shove.

“Run.”

They took off at a sprint, Fitz keeping pace, always making up for what he lacked in agility with speed. Down the alley behind the bar, around the corner onto a one-way street, serpentining through cross streets flat out for fifteen minutes until they’d put the tourist district behind them. He slowed to a brisk walk when they reached the industrial sector, ears tuned to the sound of their footsteps, listening for more.

Fitz fell into place beside him, matching his stride.

One, two, three more blocks, an abandoned parking lot, a secondary abandoned building. He pulled out his keys when they reached the steel door on the side of the building.

He held the door open, but Fitz shot him a wary look, eyes flicking between his face and the dark interior. Grant rolled his eyes and walked in first, trusting Fitz to follow him in. The heavy door slammed shut, the sound echoing through the concrete space.

“Where are we?” Fitz’s voice rang through the darkness. Angry? Scared? Annoyed?

Grant flicked on the light.

“My safe house.”


	2. Chapter 2

Fitz curled his fingers tighter around the straps of his backpack, eyes adjusting to the dim light, taking in the room around him.

Large, but low-ceilinged, with only one door other than the one they’d come through, at the opposite end of the room, presumably to the stairs. No windows. Some kind of warehouse, a place to stock pile in between shipments, if he had to guess; empty now except for Ward’s wall of weapons, a workman’s table, an army cot, half a dozen cases of bottled water, and two milk crates of thin brown packages filed in neat rows. Non-perishable meals, from the look of it.

“Never should have been pissed about you getting out. This looks worse than your cell.”

Ward smiled, ear to the door, eyes on the small sliver of light peaking through the bottom of the doorframe.

“I have another place with Kara.”

“Of course you do.”

Apparently satisfied they’d successfully avoided being followed, Ward took a step away from the door into the room. A step closer to him.

“You want to tell me why you had Shield agents following you?”

Fitz sighed, rubbing a hand over his eyes.

“There’s been a hostile takeover. Agent Gonzales, Agent Weaver, they kicked Coulson out. Blew up the base, forced their way in. Bobbi, Mack, they helped them. According to them, Coulson’s compromised, has no business leading. They’re calling themselves the Real Shield.”

Ward dropped his head back, eyes to the ceiling.

“God, I don’t miss this bullshit.”

“Is there any of it you do miss?” The words fell out of his mouth without his permission. His tongue, the traitor.

Ward’s eyes snapped to his, bright, dangerous.

“So, Shield’s tearing itself apart, you’re on the run, no doubt out of loyalty to Coulson, and I’m the first person you think to go looking or? I thought you never wanted to see me again. Couldn’t trust me. Never should have.”

He couldn’t get into this. Not now.

“Yeah, well, you’re not the only person on that list anymore.” He walked over to the workman’s table, let his backpack slip off his shoulders, fall to the metal surface with a thud. “I know who you are now. I know I can’t trust you. It’s everyone else I’m not so sure about.”

He looked back over his shoulder at Ward. He was watching him carefully, a torn expression in his eyes, something like regret, or pain. Too close to the last look Fitz had of him before he was dropped to the bottom of the ocean. He turned back to the table and started unzipping his backpack to avoid it.

“So, what now?” Ward asked, following him to the table. “You found me; I lost your tail. Now what?”

Fitz pulled Fury’s toolbox from the front pocket of his backpack.

“Now I contact Coulson.”

“I’m starting to think you just missed me. Why wasn’t that your first move?”

“It’s a little hard biometrically hacking something you’re not even supposed to have when you’ve got multiple highly trained agents watching your every move.”

He flicked the table lamp on and started pulling out the supplies he’d packed: pipette, tips, ice chest with the vial of Coulson’s DNA, gloves. He felt Ward take a step closer to him and tried to ignore the shiver that ran through him, the goosebumps on his skin.

Five minutes later, the toolbox was open and Ward was standing right behind him, close enough he could feel the heat from his body.

“I always did like watching you work.”

Fitz swallowed. His mouth was dry.

Ward reached a hand out toward the holoprojection and Fitz pushed it aside.

“Stop. I know you never learned.”

Ward arched an eyebrow at him but pulled his hand back, still hovering over his left shoulder.

He started scrolling through the files until he found the folder labeled “communications.” Now it was just a matter of finding the IP address for each of Coulson’s personal electronics, picking the one not located on base, and—

A new projection popped up, Hunter’s face boxed in a blue frame.

“Fitz! Bloody brilliant—wait, how are you doing this? How’d you figure out where to contact us?”

“I opened Fury’s toolbox.”

“Fitz, you absolute _genius_.” Hunter turned away from the camera. “Coulson, it’s Fitz! He’s got the toolbox.”

Coulson’s face dropped into frame above Hunter a second later.

“Fitz. You’re a sight for sore eyes. How’d you get out?”

“I left. Managed to sneak this out with me.”

“They let you leave?”

“Not without sending Real Shield agents to follow me.”

Hunter rolled his eyes. “’Course they did.”

Coulson ignored him. “How’d you shake them?”

Ward had been watching the whole exchange without a word, but now he stepped even closer, fully into Fitz’s space, his side against Fitz’s back, stooping a little to bring himself into view.

“Hey, boss.”

“Ward.” Coulson sounded taken aback. “I’m surprised to see you two together.” Coulson’s eyes met his, something like alarm buried deep within them.

“You and me both,” Ward answered smoothly.

Hunter dropped his voice. “You alright, mate?”

Fitz nodded, and Hunter leaned back in his seat, clearly relieved.

“Well, the…shock of this partnership aside, I can’t say it doesn’t save me a step.” Coulson looked right at Ward. “I have an offer.”

Fitz felt Ward tense behind him.

“Not interested in helping you.”

“We both know that’s obviously not true.”

He felt more than saw Coulson’s eyes flicker to him meaningfully, and he dropped his eyes, shifting his weight. Ward sighed.

“Fine. I’m listening.”

“Strucker. List. I need an introduction. Or a way to get to them.”

“I’m not in HYDRA anymore, Coulson.”

“But you were.”

“Never met them.”

“C’mon, Ward. We both know you’re resourceful. Don’t tell me you don’t know a guy who knows a guy.”

“What’s the offer?”

“You get us inside, I let you walk away.” Fitz lifted his head to look at Coulson, but his focus was still on Ward. Coulson shrugged. “Free and clear. No more looking over your shoulder.”

Fitz glanced down at Ward’s arm, at his fingers curling into a fist.

“Don’t believe you.”

“You help me, and I’ll help you. Put you through the Tahiti protocol and let you go.”

Ward barked out a laugh. “There it is.”

Fitz looked back up at the screen. Hunter was watching him carefully. He tried to keep his face as neutral as possible.

“I don’t think so, Coulson,” Ward was saying.

“Grant. Look at where you’re standing. Look at who you’re with. You didn’t have to help him. But you did. Which means maybe there’s still good left in you. Garrett, your family, maybe they didn’t destroy all that. Tahiti will erase all the bad; let you start over. Choose the man you want to be.”

It was quiet for a moment, Coulson and Ward watching each other, Hunter watching him. He tried his best to look like he had no personal feelings on the matter.

Finally—

“Alright,” Ward conceded. Fitz covered his gasp with a deep breath. “I might know a guy. Where do you want us to meet you?”

“I’ll send the coordinates to the toolbox. And Ward?” Coulson’s voice was sharp. “Fitz better be in the same condition when I see him next.”

Ward clenched his fist so hard, Fitz heard his knuckles crack.

“Obviously.” Ward’s voice was toxic, poison. Cold as ice. He turned away from the projection, stalked over to his weapons wall. Fitz followed him with his eyes, then turned back to Coulson and Hunter.

“See you soon, Fitz,” Coulson said, then disappeared again.

Hunter was shaking his head, somewhere between deeply troubled and trying not to laugh.

“Godspeed, mate.”

Fitz nodded silently, not trusting himself to speak, and then he swiped the frame away, ending the call. The holoprojection shrank back into the toolbox, and he and Ward were alone.


	3. Chapter 3

Eight hours after Fitz sat down next to him at the bar, he was pressed against him in the back of a pickup truck, buried under produce crates, getting smuggled across the border on his way to meet Phil Coulson to make an introduction into HYDRA’s inner network.

Not how he’d pictured the day going.

The driver was just another guy. A guy who knew a guy who was another one of Grant’s connections, his guy for crossing in and out of the U.S. without leaving a trace. No trace, no follow.

He and Fitz were curled together at the top of the truck bed, Fitz’s back to his front. He could smell the mild, clean scent of Fitz’s soap, dulling the overwhelming odor of plywood and sawdust.

He’d definitely been in worse positions.

Fitz hadn’t spoken a single word since the blow up at the safe house. He’d laid down on the cot in the corner, his bags at his feet, staring at the ceiling and responding to the travel plans Grant laid out with only a nod or a shake of his head.

On their first mission, he hadn’t been able to get Fitz to shut up. The silent treatment was worse. So much worse.

It set him on edge, shifted the ground underneath him. It stole his concentration and left him unfocused, constantly glancing back at Fitz while he paced circles around the room, making calls.

Kara had been his first call, and that’s what did it. Threw off whatever careful balance they’d struck.

There was no hiding in the safe house, no privacy. No chance he’d duck outside and risk their safety. He’d called Kara to tell her to stay at her mom’s, that she’d be safe there. That he was leaving the city, but he’d be safe, too.

Fitz had been standing at the table, watching Fury’s toolbox, waiting for the coordinates from Coulson. Hands on his hips, staring so intensely Grant could practically see the table vibrating under the force of his gaze.

“Love you,” Kara had said in his ear.

“You, too, baby,” he’d said and ended the call.

Fitz hadn’t even bothered turning around.

“Does she know you don’t really love her?”

“Just because I betrayed you doesn’t mean I’m incapable of love.”

“I didn’t say you weren't capable. But you won’t let yourself have the real thing.”

He’d taken the bait. Couldn’t help himself.

“And what does that mean?”

“The only people you really let get close to you are the ones who want you around for something other than who you are. You don’t trust people just to want you, to love you.” He’d paused, and Grant had been frozen, for once unable to do anything but wait for what was coming. “It’s not hard to figure. You couldn’t trust your own brothers, your parents to do it. Why would you trust anyone else?”

At his silence, Fitz had crossed his arms, finally turned to look at him over his shoulder. His voice had been hard, but there’d been nothing but sadness in his eyes. Something deeper than sadness. Sorrow.

“But you could have. You had the team. You had me.” He turned back to the toolbox. “And you threw it all away.” His voice had dropped a decibel but it still rang clear in the empty space, sharp enough to cut. “For people who needed something from you.”

Grant had stood in the middle of the room, blood rushing in his ears, completely thrown by how precisely Fitz was picking him apart. He’d finally found his voice but only enough to offer up the weakest retort.

“That’s not—”

“Oh, come _on_ , Ward.” It was like Fitz had been waiting for the denial, for him to fight back. He’d whirled around, throwing his arms wide. “Garrett needed you for power. Kara needs you because she’s broken.”

Something inside him had snapped at the word.

“She is _not_ broken.”

“We’re all broken!” Fitz had yelled, his voice bounding off a dozen concrete surfaces. “Garrett fed you lies, took advantage, turned you into this. 33 lost her mind. Coulson _died_ and they put the pieces back together, but he’s still not right! You threw me to the bottom of the ocean, and I’ll never be the same!”

Grant had closed the space between them in three strides, put himself in Fitz’s space and spat the words at him.

“I am not broken. I like who I am.”

Of course, at that moment, the toolbox had lit up behind Fitz, drawing their attention. Fitz had snatched Grant’s phone from where he still clutched it in his hand, typed in the coordinates, and thrust it back into his palm.

“I don’t believe that. And neither do you.”

And then he’d packed the toolbox back into his backpack and pushed past him to take up his post on the cot.

Grant had been so angry he’d nearly crushed the phone in his hand, but now, this close, with Fitz shivering hard enough to shake them both, he didn’t have it in him to be mad.

He draped an arm across Fitz’s waist, loose enough he could refuse it. Fitz startled at the weight.

“Your teeth are chattering so hard, they’ll hear it and find us,” Grant breathed into his ear. “Is this why you’re always wearing sweaters? Because you’re cold blooded?”

Fitz left his arm where it was.

“It was so cold down there,” he whispered. Grant could barely make the words out above the clacking of Fitz’s teeth and the hum of the tires on the road. “So dark. It’s like…I haven’t been able to get warm since.”

He didn’t need to ask what he was referring to.

“I still don’t understand why you did it.”

Grant took a deep breath, focused on the knit of Fitz’s sweater beneath his fingers. It was softer than he’d imagined. Every single sweater his mother had ever dressed him in had been itchy.

“I was giving you a chance. Even at the bottom of the ocean, there was a chance you might make it. It wasn’t a certainty that you’d die. But if you’d stayed on board…” He sighed. “You would have.”

“You would have killed me?”

Grant swallowed, and his fingers flexed against Fitz.

“No. But Garrett would have.”

“So am I supposed to thank you? For saving me?”

“No. You saved yourself. I knew if anyone could figure a way out, it’d be you.”

“I almost didn’t. And it wasn’t enough. If Fury hadn’t…”

He trailed off, and the rest of the sentence hung in the air around them. Grant let it sink down over him before he spoke again.

“I made promises. Before I met you. Any of you.” He hoped Fitz could hear the apology in his voice, in his words. “I had to keep them.”

They descended into silence again. And then—

“You didn’t,” Fitz said. He reached for his hand, held it tighter against him. “I wish you hadn’t.”

Grant closed the last inch between them, bringing himself flush against Fitz’s back.

_Me, too_ , he thought. But didn’t say it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (I know Coulson could have picked them up in the quinjet, but where's the fun in that?)


	4. Chapter 4

Ward’s connection dropped them off just outside San Diego, at a motel tucked in between a gas station and a small strip mall advertising a few restaurants, a bar/pool hall, a convenience store, and a nail salon. Ward headed to the front office to get them a room, and Fitz headed to a dark corner of the parking lot to wait for him.

“Don’t make it easy on them,” Ward had said, nodding toward the bright parking lot lights.

It was late enough that the air had cooled off, even for southern California, and a slight breeze wafted the humid, festering smell of the dumpster toward him.

He could still feel Ward’s arm wrapped around his waist, the solid weight of his body behind him.

The man himself appeared next to him without a sound, disrupting the line of thought with a scowl on his face and a rough, “Let’s go.”

He led them to a corner room on the ground level, opened the door and walked in first, letting Fitz catch the door and shut it behind him.

Fitz turned around and stopped short.

Beige walls, ugly maroon carpet that matched an equally ugly polyester bedspread, small circular table in front of the window next to the door, a dark corner he was assuming led to the bathroom—the room was exactly as he’d expected.

Except for the single queen-sized bed in the center of the room.

He cast a sideways look at Ward, whose eyes were lingering on the bed, too. He put up a hand.

“Don’t start. It’s the only room they had left.”

Ward shrugged his bag off his shoulder onto the table and turned back toward the door.

“I’ll go get us something to eat. Lock the door behind me.”

And then he was gone.

Fitz took one last long look at the bed.

Well. The day had been weird enough already.

It was after two in the morning. He hadn’t slept since he’d left the base except for a brief nap on his flight to Mexico. He dropped his backpack onto the far side of the bed and headed for the bathroom, duffle in tow, desperate to wash off the last 36 hours, but it was no use. There wasn’t enough soap in the world to erase the memory of the warmth of Ward’s breath on the back of his neck.

And yet, when he walked out into the room and saw Ward standing over the table, pulling pre-made sandwiches out of a plastic bag, he felt all the tension leave his body.

Maybe it was the shower of the fresh change of clothes or the sight of food after not eating for six hours. Maybe it was knowing he’d finally get to sleep tonight or that, in another twelve hours, he’d be back with Coulson and Hunter. Maybe it was that he’d finally been able to whisper instead of yell, to have a conversation with Ward that didn’t dissolve into a screaming match, that felt a little closer to resolution and understanding than animosity.

Or maybe it was just that Ward had remembered to get extra salt and pepper packets.

Whatever it was, he knew he was done fighting. He was ready for whatever came next.

He walked over to the table, dropped into the seat opposite where Ward was standing.

“The kitchen at the bar was closed, otherwise I would have gotten us something warm to eat,” Ward told him, still emptying the bags.

He’d bought snowballs, like a total freak. All the snacks, all the desserts in the world, and he picked snowballs.

“I’m just relieved it’s not odorless jerky.”

Ward looked up at him, a little surprised, a little unsure. Fitz smiled, and Ward seemed to take the comment for what it really was: a truce. He raised an eyebrow.

“Didn’t have any,” he said with a smirk. “I checked.”

For the first time in a long time, Fitz laughed.


	5. Epilogue

Grant checked the lock on the door one more time, peeked through a corner of the blinds to make one last sweep of the parking lot, flicked the light on the nightstand, and climbed into bed next to Fitz.

Fitz had been in bed when he’d gotten out of the shower, lying on his side facing the wall, his breathing slow and even, already asleep.

Or so he thought.

He sank down onto the mattress, turned onto his side and pulled the blankets up to his chest, his eyes tracing the silhouette of Fitz’s back, just visible in the dark. Fitz’s voice carried to him from the other side of the bed.

“Don’t take Coulson’s deal.”

“What?”

Fitz rolled over to face him.

“The Tahiti program. Don’t do it.”

“Fitz—” he started, but Fitz cut him off.

“It hasn’t been all bad, has it?”

Fitz’s eyes were so sincere, so painfully earnest, that it drew the confession right out of him.

“No.”

“I don’t want us to lose this. I don’t want to be the only one who remembers it.”

They looked at each other, nothing separating them but a few inches of crappy hotel mattress. No Garrett, no Coulson, no Shield or HYDRA between them, and he didn’t want to forget this, either.

He reached out and took Fitz’s hand, and Fitz’s fingers immediately closed around his. This was a promise he could make, and God, he wanted to make it. He wanted Fitz to be the one he made promises to, whose promises he kept.

“Then we won’t. And you won’t be.”

Fitz nodded gravely and tightened his hold on Grant’s hand. They watched each other for a few more minutes, and then the exhaustion seemed to catch up with him, and he closed his eyes. Grant waited until Fitz fell asleep before he said the words, whispering them into his dreams.

“I promise.”

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading!


End file.
